Swifts are enigmatic birds. A delight. They are essentially an African species that chooses to spend 3 months here in the Northern Hemisphere, taking advantage of long hours of daylight and an abundance of aerial plankton to raise their young. Their decline in the UK is well documented, with reasons many fold and complex, but…
It was as I was closing my eyes to drift away on this lazy sunny afternoon, that I noticed a movement almost directly at my feet. Out of the deep shade of the garden hedge hopped our resident male Blackbird. He looked up at me with his warm brown eyes, decided I was harmless enough,…
The swallowtail occupies a precarious niche in the UK. Confined nowadays to the fens of the Norfolk Broads, they depend on the management activity of various conservation bodies and their dedicated staff to maintain the habitat that supports their larval foodplant the milk parsley. This fragile plant can easily be crowded out by more vigorous…
Welcome to my 220 for 2022 – June Update. Time can be a strange phenomenon; sometimes a friend, sometimes a foe. It becomes both during exercises of this nature, whether it’s conducted over a day or a year doesn’t seem to alter this basic fact. At commencement, when you are fresh and raring to go,…